Bart Drost

Gold leaf boys Part I consists of a renewed version of 'Triptych with the artist at a very young age' (was shown in 1988 in Drost's exhibition 'nous venons tous du paradis, nous allons tous au paradis' at Galerie Van den Crommenacker in Arnhem), the collection of ink drawings 'life a playground' (2012-2017) and a boy statue with fruit bowl (2022). 

'Triptych with the artist at a very young age' was originally a work for the wall. Here, however, it is an independent image that occupies its space. Drost has added a headpiece with clock, modified the back into a visible side and in front of it he places a pedestal with a miniature version of the antique spinario, the thorn extractor. Gold shiny.

'Triptych with the artist at a very young age' is originally a collection of black-and-white photographs of boys: boys playing, boys playing sports, boys outside, boys inside, alone or in a group. Boys as the artist himself once was, could have been, wanted to be. Wants to be?

Drost collected hundreds of them around 1975/85 and decided to pin them all on three wooden panels. Like a precious butterfly collection. In the middle panel, however, he only inserts portrait photos with a color photo of himself as a communicator in the middle.

In 2021, Drost decided to paint all the boys in the photos gold, except for the portrait of himself. An irreversible process...

A wall with a series of framed ink drawings is part of Gold Leaf Boys Volume I. In 2011, Bart Drost presented roughly 200 porcelain drawings at Galerie Marzee in Nijmegen. He converted these drawings on paper with Indian ink and bundled them in 2012 in the booklet  'slatekeningen in inkt'. In the years that followed, he transformed sexually tinted photos into drawings using the same process (ink surfaces on paper). He has brought the two originally separate series of characters together here. One cannot exist without the other.

Gold Leaf Boys Part III consists of a wall with about 150 colorful wooden sculptures, a reading table with 6 books (drawings, lines, words, gold, pants, names), a display cabinet with 39 small wooden sculptures, a wooden box with miniature sculptures and 7 wooden boy puzzles.

Gold Leaf Boys Part III was shown in a first version in 2021 for a select audience under the title  'boys are boys again' in the privacy of Drosts own studio.

Gold Leaf Boys was originally conceived as a triptych and the intention was to show the work at three locations. Part I & Part III were shown at POPOP in Nijmegen. Gold Leaf Boys Part II (the middle section) can be seen at Art Initiative De Nieuwe Gang in Beuningen.

To the presentation of Bladgoudjongens Part I & Part III, Bart Drost added a subdued version of the linesdrawingboysdrawinglines project that he first showed as part of the installation grass grows grass in 2018.

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